Bully bosses' zero-hour backdown

Socialist Party members out fighting zero-hour contracts with the Fast Food Rights campaign, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

What does it feel like to feel worthless at work? Well it goes like this. You work very hard, undergo extensive training, gain additional educational qualifications in your spare time and go the extra mile every day as a learning support worker to support your students.

Then one day along come comfortable, senior managers who say that your job - with sick pay, holiday payments, a pension and half decent working conditions - is now only worth a zero-hour contract.

Your pay may not be brilliant but at least you have some basic security and you think your job is worthwhile. Wrong. It is not because they now value you as worth less than them. They even have the gall to say that imposing zero-hour contracts is fraught with moral and ethical dilemmas for them.

I spoke with our GMB union rep about the threat of zero-hour contracts. He met with management and was told that there are no proposals at present, there's nothing on the table and nothing in writing and that the contracts of all staff presently employed there are secure and will continue as normal. It's clear they have backed down as soon as they were approached by the union. It's also come to light that the agency the management was suggesting be used, Randwick, has just been ditched by the college we are merging with as 'not fit for purpose'.